ces

Each year we review the massive amounts of news coming out of CES, and distill it down to the topics of interest to gamers. We'll update this topic each day with new posts, and comment in the forum thread if you think we've missed something.

January 9th
Toshiba p50t with 4k screen
Gartner: PC Shipments down

January 8th
Gigabyte "Auros" - Dual GPU gaming laptop less than 1" thick
Origin Genesis and Millennium PC cases offer ultimate customization - including four motherboard positions
More on AMD's "Project Discovery" tablet
Lots of interest in the Dell $699 4k UHD monitor; but still no specs, Dell has a landing page for the P2815Q...

Based on two reports from Engadget, both LG and Samsung are poised to showcase 105" Ultra HD TVs sporting a 21:9 "ultra widescreen" aspect ratio. Both displays are curved, and sport a resolution of 5,120 x 2,160 - a total of 11.06M pixels.

By comparison a "4K UHD" display has 8.29M pixels, making these sets basically 5.3K UHD". By way of comparison, a 5x1-Portrait Eyefinity configuration has 10.4M pixels, and an aspect ratio of 25.3:9 - just wider than the 21:9 aspect ratio here. Recently announced 3440x1440 21:9 displays have 4.93M pixels (roughly 2.5 HD), and just under half the pixels of these new massive panels.

If you've got the money for one of these new displays, you can compare performance to any 5x1-Portrait Eyefinity benchmarks out there. Until this resolution makes its eventual way to PC displays, you can keep on the lookout for the 34" 3440x1440 panels which will require half the horsepower.

Now that CES has wrapped up, here are a few more articles and announcements that should be of interest to gamers.

More Oculus Rift - Engadget had an interview with the folks behind the upcoming VR headset. There was also additional news on playable demos and showcases, particularly the Epic Citadel.

More 4k Displays - Intel and the VESA DisplayPort group showed a new take on 4k displays - the "Collage". Shown off a Gigabyte motherboard, four 1080p displays were driven by two Thunderbolt ports, or a single DisplayPort 1.2 and MST hub. Panasonic showed off a prototype 4k tablet. The 20" device may never make it to production, but it does show that 4k resolutions can already be squeezed down to monitor sizes. TechGage also put out an article showcasing the different 4k resolutions and the need for a standard.

PC Hardware - InWin showed off some great new PC cases, the D-Frame and H-Frame. And famed art/tech house Art Lebedev Studio showed off their latest keyboard, the Optimus Popularis. The keyboard is fully customizable, with small screens for each key - think the Razer Blade for a full keyboard. The $1k price tag will keep it out of the mass market, but is hopefully a sign of what the "keyboard of tomorrow" will look like.

Monitors - BenQ announced a 1ms "professional gaming monitor". ASUS also announced a 144Hz monitor aimed at gamers.

So, the first couple of days are behind us for CES 2013. A few things have been announced/showcased that are relevant to gaming.

Razer Edge: Razer has come out with the Razer Edge, which is the production model of Project Fiona shown last year at CES 2012. Engadget has also posted a comparison of the Edge versus of tablet options.

Valve Steambox: Valve's hardware move is still somewhat shrouded in mystery. However, a number of unique prototypes were shown at CES. While a number of them seem to be just PCs in HTPC form factors, the Piston from Xi3 is certainly unique. in addition to be very small and light, it offers modular and easily updates to hardware.

Oculus Rift: The folks at Engadget have an updated take on the hardware. PC World and TechHive say it's so good, "it's scary". I'm more excited to have one coming for the WSGF.

4k Displays: Big news is 4k displays. There are lots of them being announced, along with a few new (regular HD) monitors being released by HP.

Here is day three of the gaming-related news from CES 2012. Check out the prior days here: Mon (Jan 9th), Tues (Jan 10th), Wed (Jan 11th). Like Wednesday, Thursday was a pretty light day. Details on a couple of things that might interest you in the full article.

Here is day two of the gaming-related news from CES 2012. Check out the prior days here: Mon (Jan 9th)

Last year was a pretty good year for gamers. We got a look at the Razer Switchblade Prototype, Vizio announced its 3D 21:9 Cinemawide HDTVs, AMD launched the APU with the well received HP dm1z, and there were more new panels and notebooks than you could shake a stick at. Two years ago at CES 2010, Dell launched their first 27" panel - the U2711.

Since then the Switchblade has morphed into the Razer Blade (and the same technology showed up in their SW:TOR keyboard), the Vizio Cinemawide missed its anticipated fall 2011 launch, APUs continue to turn up everwhere, and HP has released its own 27" - the ZR2740w (it's actually an LED backed IPS monitor, and undercuts Dell's price by almost $300).

So, what will CES 2012 bring gamers? I'm hoping for an 27" LED IPS panel from Dell to heat up the price wars at the top end, and I really want the 21:9 Cinemawide to launch. It would also be nice to see some of the magic from the Razer products filter down into more affordable gear. And, there's always more panels than you can shake a stick at. So, here I'm collecting the announcements that I think will appear to the folks here at the WSGF.

A 21:9 display offers a 2.33:1 aspect, and is closer to to the "cinematic" movie aspect ratio of 2.78:1. This will result in lower black bars for movie watching. It also provides a wider aspect for gaming.

Even if you aren't a fan of multi-monitor gaming (Eyefinity & Surround), the work of the WSGF helps to ensure that games on these single ultra-wide monitors would be Hor+. It's aspect ratio is only slightly narrower than a 5x1-P Eyefinity setup of 2.8:1.

We've started a forum thead with a running list of CES 2011 News that will be of interest to our readers. Found news or announcements that are of interest? Post them as well

While there weren't a lot of new Eyefinity announcements at CES (something on Eyefinity6 would have been nice), it was in strong showing. AMD had a strong Eyefinity presence at CES with multiple demo rigs. They were also touting strong Eyefinity support in key titles from 2009 and 2010. Dave Baumann passed along this slide from their latest Eyefinity presentation deck, which outlines a number of those titles (Mass Effect 2 included!).